


ain't no way to be without you babe

by flagpoles



Category: Wild Child (2008)
Genre: F/M, girl gang + freddies mum are also present, hello to the 3 people that are going to read this how weird is this night goin for u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 19:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11214387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flagpoles/pseuds/flagpoles
Summary: He spits out his tea. “Pardon?”She juts out her chin. “We should get married.”





	ain't no way to be without you babe

**Author's Note:**

> For andy, obviously, because she cried and called drippy 'dippy' for ninety messages. love u.

**i.**

 

She turns twenty-two, and her dad dies, and two weeks later she’s marching into the flat and asking Freddie to marry her.

He spits out his tea. “Pardon?”

She juts out her chin. “We should get married.” 

He literally has no idea what to say, which is hardly unusual when it comes to Poppy, but even so. She’s just proposed to him at seven in the evening with no ring and while eating a bag of crisps.

“Let’s take a minute.” Freddie says, intending to take several.

“Why?” she puts another crisp in her mouth, “You either want to marry me or you don’t.”

Freddie, who has wanted to marry Poppy since they were seventeen and she got so drunk on New Year’s that she tried to eat an entire bag of icing sugar in Drippy’s backyard, does not feel like the question is as simple as she is making it seem. She had sat by her father’s grave for the longest time after the funeral was over. Molly could only get her to leave when it got so dark they heard owls.

“It doesn’t even need to be a big thing” she goes on, “Just, like, the girls, Molly, your Mum. And maybe Elliot from Uni. Actually- fuck Elliot, you know he changed his Facebook relationship status to ‘single’ the other day? If he’s broken up with Isla I’m-“

“Poppy.” He stands up, abandoning his paper, and walks over to her. He can see her jaw tense. “Wait-“

“No.” she says, sounding almost choked. His chest hurts. “No waiting. There isn’t time.”

 

**ii.**

 

The problem of the matter is that she doesn’t leave it alone. A few days later she marches up to him, tea in hand, and says “I’ve got the licence”, waving a literal marriage license in his face.

“Poppy-“

“Sign.” She’s giving him that look that she does, all determined, and it’s like he’s twenty and she’s failing stats all over again, up all night, living off coffee, speaking three words to him a day and then passing with honours and kissing him till he can barely stand. She could not be a more difficult, delirious person. He loves her ridiculously.

“Poppy, we’re not getting married.” He says, forcefully. Because- they’re absolutely not.

“Fine.” She snatches his pen and does his signature perfectly along the dotted line. She has definitely done that before. He’s only mildly horrified.

 “Hey.” He grabs her wrist, “You’re not thinking clearly.” It’s almost like she’s daring him to acknowledge it. To say, out loud, _your dad died and you’re acting crazy._

“I know what I want, and I want to be married to you, and I know you want to marry me. Don’t lie. You buy smooth peanut butter even though you like crunchy. People don’t do that for nothing.”

 “I don’t think that logic is as sound as you think it is.” He says, intending to go on, and then the phone is ringing and she’s answering it.

 “Hello? This is she. Okay yes they _arrived_ but there is a hole…” she’s walking away, into their bedroom, and he takes the licence and stares at it. She’s already signed her name, curly, enormous signature seemingly taking up half the page. He has an urge to rip the paper, save her from herself. A hand suddenly reaches out and snatches it from him, and he looks up to see her smirking at him, eyebrows up, mouthing _nice try._

**iii.**

“What is this!?”

 “Mum?” Freddie groggily rubs his eyes, “What-“

 "I just got a Facebook invite to your wedding! A _Facebook_ invite!” She genuinely sounds like she might have a stroke. Freddie feels the same.

 “ _What?”_

“You invited me to your wedding- next Sunday!- over Facebook! You’re getting married _next Sunday_ and haven’t even _bothered_ to tell me yourse-“

 “Mum. I am not getting married next Sunday.” He says, sitting up in bed and wishing rather strongly he had never picked up the phone.

 “Well then why have I got a Facebook invite. From _Facebook.”_

 He shuts his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It’s… don’t worry.”

 She doesn’t say anything, and subconsciously he reaches over to Poppy’s side of the bed, only to come up empty. She’s been getting up early, going on walks for hours and then coming home at noon like it was all normal. The first time had scared the shit out him, on the phone to Kate who was trying to talk him out of calling the police and she just strolls back in, puts her purse on the table and asks him if he knew that feeding ducks in the street punishable by a fine.

 “Is she alright?” his mother asks, and he pulls his hand back.

 “Not really.” He says.

 “Should I click ‘not attending’ on the invite?”

 He rubs his face. “Yes. Sure.”

  

**v.**

 

The girls swarm him outside his Thursday afternoon class.

 Kate is accusatory. “What the fuck?” she hisses, holding up a copy of the Facebook invite, because of course she’s printed it out.

 “I told her to take it down.” he tries. Drippy is glaring at him like something awful.

 “You’re taking advantage of her.” Josie demands, arms folded, scowling, “Her Dad just fucking died.”

 “You can’t honestly think this was _my_ idea.”

 “You’re trying to take her for her money.” Drippy accuses, waving a finger. Freddie blanches.

 Josie gives her a look. “Drippy. He’s already rich.”

 “You can never have enough money.”

 Josie turns on him again, glaring harder. “She has a point.” She says. He cannot believe this.   

 “ _What?_ No she doesn’t! You _know_ me!”

 Kate stares at him, pursing her lips together. Of the girls she knows Poppy the best, and they all know it, and Freddie knows she doesn’t think this is his idea. None of them do, really. Only Poppy would send out a Facebook invite to their wedding. It would be funny if it wasn’t so utterly not.

 “How do we-“ Kate runs a hand through her hair, “How do we snap her out of this? Why marriage? Why-“ She takes a breath. No one says anything for a minute.

 “You have to do something.” Drippy says. He just now realises they’ve all started staring at him expectantly, like he has any idea what’s fucking going on.

 “Like what? It’s Poppy.”

 “Your choice is do something or marry her.” Josie points out.

 “What are you gunna tell your kids, huh?” Drippy cuts in, “that you got married in a courthouse two weeks after their grandad died without a decent cake? Is that what you want?”

 “Jesus Drippy,” Kate says, “way to put it.”

 Drippy pulls a liquorice wand out of her pocket. “I’m calling it how I see it.”  

 

**vi.**

“So, I was thinking I would wear this? For Sunday?” Poppy appears around the door in the blue dress she wore to Kate’s honours ceremony, holding a bunch of kitchen utensils. “Obviously I’ll be holding flowers on the day, but I thought for now-“

 It’s now Friday night, and when asked if he was free this Sunday to take a shift at work he literally almost said ‘I can’t because I’m getting married’, and this has to stop now. It has gone on too long.

 “Poppy. Trouble. We’re not getting married on Sunday.” His desperate use of her sixteen year old nickname is probably a bit much. However, this entire situation is also a bit much, so it’s fair.

 “Freddie-“ she sighs, all accent and excuses.

 “No. I’m not-“ he runs a hand through his hair “I’m not letting you do this, because ten years from now when we’re thirty-four and you’re dressing every celebrity this side of the sun and going to fancy parties where they only serve finger food as big as my fucking thumbnail like at Josie’s mother’s wedding, you’re going to have to tell all those people about how we got married at a court house on a _Sunday_ while you were in a dress you’ve already worn and without a single dog present. Remember when we were at Mum’s sixtieth and you said you wanted a huge dog to be the flower girl if you ever got married? And I asked what kind of dog and you said ‘a big dog’ and then stole my beer?”

 He now officially has no idea what he’s saying. She’s staring at him, looking very unlike herself. Almost hurt.

 “It would be a terrible idea just to get married because you miss your Dad.” He says, all at once before he can regret it. They look at each other for what feels like far too long a time.  

 “It’s like” she near whispers, “I just think there’s no way he could miss it. Like he’s going to get out of his stupid grave and come to our stupid wedding because how could he not.” His chest aches. She’s just standing in their kitchen, holding a pile of kitchen utensils and shuddering from the unfairness of it all.

 “I do want to marry you.” She says suddenly, looking up, “That part is real.”

 “I know.” He says.

 She breathes out, looking at the ground and then back at him. “I can’t believe you remember the dog thing.” she confesses.

 “Of course I remember the dog thing. Who could forget the dog thing.” He walks towards her, and she wraps her arms around his middle, hands gripping the back of his shirt. He kisses the top of her head. The tongs are digging into his back and he does not care.

 “I’m ridiculous.” She says, muffled into his shirt, “I have no idea why you love me.”

 Maybe, he thinks, he should start going with her on her endless walks. They could get coffee and she would get hers with no cream only to scoop all the cream out of his with her finger and then pretend she hadn’t. Maybe, if he was just there, she would start talking and make all the grief come out of her in bits.

 “It’s because of the dog thing.” He tells her, resting his chin on the top of her head.


End file.
